


I could lie, say I like it like that

by DIRTandRAIN



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Angst, Forced Work, Gen, Manipulation, Stockholm Syndrome, cobaye, rat lab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DIRTandRAIN/pseuds/DIRTandRAIN
Summary: A short moment in Suigetsu Hozuki's life, many years after the war, but long before the birth of the new generation - Or when Orochimaru decides one fine morning that being a parent would complete his life, and Suigetsu really, really wants a new job, or even just new friends.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	I could lie, say I like it like that

**Author's Note:**

> It's a work that matters to me. I hope you'll like it. Please, let me know in the comment.
> 
> Thanks Kuja for the correction !

One day, Orochimaru woke up with the thought that he would make a great parent. Suigetsu is not exactly sure how he is supposed to react to this information.

He vaguely remembers letting out a snort, thinking of how badly he would love to tell his former teammates what he had just heard. Wasn't it just the _best_ joke? He knew the man had a rather peculiar sense of humour - all right, maybe " _humour_ " was a bit exaggerated since, apart from sniggering in his corner for obscure reasons and throwing ever-more disturbing insinuations on the fire, one could not truthfully label him as possessing even an ounce of genuine _humour_ \- but for him to make a comment like that in public? Suigetsu Hozuki's jaw hit the floor.

Then he realised that the man was deadly serious and the next words ("Of course, why not open a daycare centre while we're at it? ") died on the tip of his tongue. The silence fell heavily between them after that. Suigetsu eventually turned on his heels and disappeared quickly down a corridor. God knows hell would freeze over before he would allow himself to listen to that guy's fantasies again.

Of course, since nothing ever really goes as planned, the proverbial hell eventually froze over and Suigetsu started to believe that the Gods had not yet finished toying with their joke of a world.

He doesn't know how long it takes before they return to the topic. Maybe months, maybe even years (one year, three months, twenty-eight days to be exact). What he does know is that the nights have become shorter with winter's arrival and that it is a nocturnal urge coupled with a misplaced burst of curiosity that ends up leading his steps into underground laboratory number two.

Even now, Suigetsu can still remember the shadows dancing on the walls, like old stories animated with fingertips by candlelight. The roar of machines and a sharp chemical smell assaulted his nose as soon as he entered the sacrosanct lab. A huge vat seemed to have taken root in the very centre of the room. Around it, sometimes brushing against a pane of glass he knew to be impenetrable, cables, pipes and other wires of unknown purpose fell like a curtain of dark, tangled hair.

For a moment, he thought he had been sent back many years into the past. In that moment, his heart raced in his chest and an invisible weight dropped to rest heavily on his shoulders. Then he knew that it was all just memories, and that he _wasn't_ the _one_ trapped in the vat, at the mercy of the tools and scalpels.

He had stepped forward, alert. And then he saw it, the _thing_ , bathed in a liquid that, under the dim light, made the world feel as if it were underwater. He stared at it for a long time, unable to form any coherent thoughts, almost nauseous with the onslaught of _disgust-fear-terror-disbelief._ In the end he simply prayed that whatever Orochimaru had had the brilliant idea to create, it would die before it was even born.

It worked, for a while.

For months he remembers watching the master of the house get angry for the smallest of reasons. There were nervous breakdowns, mood swings, and outbursts of rage. He remembers the relief he felt after each of the explosions, even if they were to such an extent the foundations themselves were shaken. He woke up thinking that _today would be a good day,_ and went to bed thinking that _today was a good day_ , because at that moment he had centred his life around the experimentation without even realising. With a little hindsight, Suigetsu knew how ridiculous it was. Why didn't he simply ignore the man's nonsense? Couldn't he pretend that he and his machinations only existed in an alternative reality - or some other bullshit? Wasn't he already tired of the whole thing? He would have preferred to relive the war, rather than be stuck with this evil genius. Oh, and he knew all about evil genius. He wasn't the whitest dove in the sky - far from it. But if there was anything where he felt a scientific touch was hardly necessary, this was one of them. Just thinking about what the man was making in his laboratory was usually enough to spoil Suigetsu's appetite. If he could catch a glimpse of beauty in the art of slicing off a limb or decapitating a head from time to time, the idea that one might want to experiment on someone still made him sick to his stomach.

So when he is asked to be there one evening, when spring is still a distant hope, to view the master's latest achievement, Suigetsu thinks it might be easier to end it all. He tells himself that he's fast and trained enough to do it, that no one will really realise what he's doing until it's too late, and-

His gaze stops on the humanoid thing suspended in the liquid and really, it's almost too easy to hate it, to hate its very essence. It's easy to wish for a dysfunction - any dysfunction - as long as the master stops with his ideas of grandeur. Suigetsu tells himself that it's less hatred of the thing and more the creeping dread of when he is asked - when he is ordered - to test the subject on his own. "I have other fish to fry, i'm sure you understand," the man tells him. "You obviously don't have anything better to do". And, even if he's not entirely wrong, Suigetsu thinks that doing nothing is always better than studying a living being under the harsh light of a microscope. In the meantime, he discovers morals he didn't know he had. It's something he doesn't know what to do with and, as is often the case with this kind of thing, the shinobi just buried it deep inside his mind. Sounds of the demon's downfall, the little one inside the flask.

He remembers obeying. What else could he have done? Throw a tantrum? He wasn't fifteen anymore, thank you very much. His freedom depended on a guy who apparently didn't know when to lock up bad guys - or something like that - and he didn't feel like sitting down over a cup of tea to discuss the lack of morals that all those closely or remotely associated with the sciences obviously possessed. It was a waste of time, for God's sake. He could hardly compete, moreover, with the guy who had haunted his dreams for decades. After all, he thought, better this thing than me. He wasn't sorry about that. He wasn't sorry for satisfying the whims of a man who blew hot and cold at varying times of day, and certainly wasn't sorry for not wanting to risk plunging back into that vat that had been his prison for half his life.

He remembers counting and measuring. He remembers taking all kinds of samples, remembers watching the offspring from every angle, trying to find the proof that would finally add _reason_ to his desire to be done with it. The Being, however, acted like any other human being. Talking, moving, eating as normal. Social skills, fundamental knowledge - the ones that every parent would pass to their offspring - were slightly different. The kid found pleasure in following orders, just like...

Eventually, the boy grows. He learns new tricks, new techniques - because of course he was taught the way of the shinobi. And Suigetsu stays there. He stays there to fill notebooks, he stays to note each change, each detail so much so that he sometimes has the impression of leafing through a book known only to himself. He discovers without really realising at first the preferences of Subject No.1: salty food, warm colours, cold temperatures. He knows how to differentiate the frown that means I don't understand, from the one that says you're starting to annoy me with your sneaky little games. Something settles between them, a taste of regular, daily routine, of why not? And then, as he begins to get used to the idea that maybe this whole setup isn't quite as bad as he thought, as he begins to let himself go and wants to know more, not just for purely scientific reasons, Orochimaru arrives in their world like a dark cloud. He talks and talks and talks for what Suigetsu imagines to be hours. All that he remembers in the end, however, is the knowledge that the experiment does not satisfy or no longer satisfies its creator.

 _"We're going to start all over again,"_ the scientist says. _"Get rid of the subject and meet me at the second laboratory."_

And all Suigetsu can think is: _Oh._


End file.
